Sunday, August 28, 2016

A Choice

I'm not a Facebook person. I think it has to do with the time it takes to maintain a page. Plus there's a lot of things I'm way behind on as far as reading and studying.

But my wife showed me something today that she thought was interesting. So I read it and agreed with her.

It was the story of a young woman who had ALS - a terminal disease - and had a short time to live. But she lived her last days as she chose.

Since she was fortunate enough to live in California - where medically assisted suicide is now legal - she planned and carried out her own two day going away party.

There was only one rule - no crying.

She and her friends watched one of her favorite movies and did what most people did at parties - had a good time. After all, no one had any illusions about why they were there.

At the end of the party she had herself rolled to a viewpoint outside the house and and died as she had chosen at the time she chose.

I think this is a wonderful social trend. I've seen too may friends suffer  their last days in agonizing pain before succumbing. As a society we treat our animals better than we do ourselves; at least we can take a terminally ill pet and "put it to sleep." Why shouldn't we be able to do as much for ourselves?

There were comments at the end of the story - most of them laudatory. Most of them about how brave and realistically the woman dealt with her last days.

And while I'm a free speech person, I had a problem with a few of the negative comments that were critical of the fact that she didn't die "naturally."

Of course one day they'll have their turn to make their own choices.